This document, Charting a new low carbon route to development, focuses on the importance of full engagement of sub-national authorities to comprehensively address climate change and suggests that taking the necessary action to tackle climate change will be more effective if it helps address local development issues.

The UN Development Program (UNDP) recognizes the critical need to support developing country governments to build on their existing development strategies and coordination experiences to construct comprehensive policy frameworks that integrate climate and development policies, planning, and action across multiple sectors at national, regional and local levels.

This paper helps advance this notion, arguing that the full engagement of sub-national authorities is important to move the climate change and development agendas forward. It suggests that taking the necessary action to tackle climate change will meet with stronger public consensus and be more effective if it helps address local development issues, such as the provision of basic services, greater energy and food security, and employment.

It addresses options which, when tailored to specific circumstances, could help balance the pursuit of both climate change mitigation and the investments needed to accelerate poverty reduction and development. It also considers how to meet the adaptation needs that many countries will face.

This primer introduces a set of approaches to help sub-national authorities through the whole process of designing their integrated territorial climate plan (ITCP), from setting objectives and participatory arrangements for the preparation of the plan, to financing priority activities. The main audience for this publication is the public development practitioner at the sub-national level, as well as domestic and international experts involved in assisting with regional development, who wish to examine and understand the instruments available for regional and local governments to become engaged in climate change mitigation and adaptation as an integral part of their development and planning process.

Read Charting a new low carbon route to development.